May 2005 Archives

I'm sitting at my desk working. The phone rings. As usual, I pick the handset up before the first ring has completed. It's my wife on her cell phone calling from her car.

"It's me. If I'm on Route 1 can I still get to I-95 by taking Route 32?"
"Sure, but what direction are you going... north or south?"
"Damn! Too late! I missed the exit."

K-

I'm off to Michigan for a few days.

The process of emptying my mother's house has been long and so much work. My trip this time is to meet with the movers who are hauling back east some things we couldn't bring ourselves (read "too heavy"): my mother's piano, a sleeper sofa, and a dining room table. If all goes according to plan, after this trip there will be nothing left in the house that the family wants. The rest will be for the appraisers, Goodwill, yard sale, trash, or simply staying with the house.

There's so much gone already that the place has devolved into a house rather than the home it once was.

The trip also marks the end of an era. When I first slept in that house in July 1970 my driver's license, high school graduation, and college were still in the future. After this week, all the beds and mattresses will be gone.

Tomorrow marks the last time any of the Whites will sleep there.
K-

Fred and Ethel are back again. This year I thought sure they would move on.

For those of you that don't know, Fred and Ethel are the bluebirds that have been nesting in my backyard for the last few years. No, I don't know for sure that they're the same pair but why not think so?

I was afraid that this year they wouldn't be back. During the winter their usual nest box fell over - the wooden pole the house was mounted to had rotted - and I was slow putting it put back up.

Yesterday I finally got around to it. Can you believe it? This morning I saw Fred checking it out. Now they haven't moved in yet so I'm not altogether sure they've forgiven my tardiness getting their room ready.

Maybe the little chocolate mints I put inside will help.
K-

*chew* *munch* *swallow* *eat*

Got through it OK...

*munch* *swallow* *eat* *chew*

I was told I'd be asleep the whole time...

*swallow *eat* *chew* *munch*

I guess I didn't get enough anesthesia...

*eat* *chew* *munch* *swallow*

Got to see a side of me I'd never seen before... the inside.

*chew* *munch* *swallow* *eat*

The doc tells me it all looks A-OK.

*munch* *swallow* *eat* *chew*

Say, are you going to eat that whole muffin?

K-

I'm having a medical "procedure" tomorrow morning that requires me to fast all day today.

It's 4 PM and all I've had since dinner yesterday is some Jello and beef broth. I'm glad I don't have to talk to anyone this afternoon. I am hungry and really, really cranky.
K-

Thus is the title of a recent book examining how the blue-collar booboisie of the great red state of Kansas got snookered by the Republican party.

I'd like to add another thing: its State Board of Education doesn't know anything about science. Today marks the opening of four days of courtroom-style hearings debating whether to admit intelligent design and creationism into Kansas science classrooms. A New York Times article and a Washington Post article discuss what some Kansans - undoutbedly considered "elitists" or "pinheads" by the majority of the state - are doing to make sure it doesn't happen. Can I send money?

Georgia talks about putting stickers on biology textbooks citing evolution as only a theory (just as gravitation and electromagnetism are) and not a fact. Well here's a sticker for Kansas:

"Variation coupled with natural selection is the most widely accepted theory that explains evolution. Evidence for evolution itself is so overwhelming that those who deny its reality can do so only through nonscientific arguments. They have every right to hold such views. They just can't teach them as science in this science class."

Coincidentally, the New York Times also has an article describing a Utah discovery of the fossilized remains of a feathered dinosaur caught in the act of eveloving from meat-eaters into vegetarians. I wonder what the Kansas Board of Education would make of this discovery? Thinking about it would seem to be out of the question.

It's bad enough red state hicks, gomers, and bumpkins now drive the American political process. It's a sad day when these yokels allow charlatans into our science classrooms.
K-